Unlocking the Past

by Grace Thompson

The complications of her relationship with Barry and their on-off-on-off engagement, were exacerbated by the fact of her working for his mother in Temptations. And another thread in the tangled web was yet another connection between the two families. Her father, Lewis Lewis, had left her mother and was living with Nia Martin, Barry’s mother. How could one small family create so many problems?

  She was putting away the dusters, having cleaned one of the top shelves when she heard a knock at the door. At first she ignored it. There was often someone taking advantage of seeing her there and asking to be served with some sweets or a birthday card. The knocking was repeated and with a sigh that was also a smile, she pushed the blind aside and began to open the door. The smile faltered a little as she recognised Caroline. Her heart began to beat more fiercely.

  “Hello, have you forgotten a birthday?” she asked, opening the door for her visitor to enter. She turned the key. “Best I lock up or there’ll be a shopful before I turn round. You’d never believe the number of people who forget it’s Wednesday!” She chattered on, aware of the incongruity of the two of them talking in Nia Martin’s shop below the flat in which they had both planned to live with Nia’s son Barry.

  “I wanted to talk to you about Barry and me,” Caroline said in her quiet voice. “I don’t want to hurt you any more than I already have, and I wondered how you felt about us coming here to live?”

  At once Rhiannon’s resentment slipped away. Caroline was such a gentle, kindly young woman it was impossible to treat her with anything but friendliness. Plump and with a rosy face and warm, friendly brown eyes, and with a smile that could end wars, Janet and Hywel Griffiths’s only daughter made a friend of everyone she met.

  “I’ll get used to you coming in and out, although Nia did wonder if it would be better to make the back door entrance easier to use, save you coming through the shop. For your sake, mind,” she added quickly, “to get Joseph’s pushchair in and out.”

  “I think we should find somewhere else, you see.”

  “There’s no need on my account. Honestly. We’re friends, aren’t we? I don’t think that should change because you’re marrying Barry, do you? He and I – well, it wouldn’t have worked, I think we both knew that all the time.” As she spoke the words she knew with a sense of relief that she meant them.

  It wasn’t Rhiannon’s discomfort Caroline was thinking of but her own. But she didn’t explain. How could she tell anyone the real reason she was unhappy at the thought of living with Barry in the flat above his mother’s shop?

  “You really wouldn’t mind seeing us in and out?”

  “Friends we are. All of us. And I’ll enjoy seeing little Joseph. I wish you well.” Shyly, she opened her arms and hugged Caroline’s plump form and then said briskly. “Now, when are you moving in? There’s a bit of sorting to do, mind. Barry’s terrible untidy, there’s a mess of boxes and equipment to be shifted.”

  “My brothers will help move it up to Barry’s studio.”

  “Full to busting that’ll be,” Rhiannon said, laughing. “Have you seen what’s here? Perhaps you can get Basil to sell some of it.”

  “That’s an idea, sell anything our Basil can.”

  “Are you having any sort of celebration?” Rhiannon asked. “Funny it’ll be, a sort of wedding but without the ceremony and all the frills.”

  “You know what Mam and Dad are like, they love filling the house with food then waiting for people to come and eat it. They don’t need much of an excuse for a party and they aren’t going to let this opportunity pass by. I hope you’ll come. Your brother, Viv, will be there; he’s bringing Joan Weston. And Eleri will be there with Basil, and – oh, you know, the usual crowd. My brothers and their friends are always about when there’s food and drink to be had.”

  “I’ll be there,” Rhiannon promised.

  “Thank you for being so understanding about all this. It would have been very unpleasant, if not impossible, for us to marry for real if you hadn’t been so generous and kind.”

  “I’m happy for you, I truly am.” Rhiannon said with an encouraging smile.

  Rhiannon walked back home to number seven Sophie Street soon after Caroline left. Her mother, Dora, was in the kitchen cutting out circles of bread and toasting them to form the bases of savouries for the Rose Tree Café which she ran with Sian Heath-Weston, one of the once wealthy Weston family.

  “You were a long time, love. Been cleaning all this time? That Nia ought to pay you extra, takes advantage she does.”

  “I’ve been talking to Caroline. She and Barry are going to live above the shop.”

  “Wicked she is, that one. Stealing Barry from you and her looking as innocent as a new-born baby! Expecting before she was churched then walking off with someone else’s fiancé! I hope you told her what you think of her!”

  “I wished her all the best, Mam, and I meant it.”

  Dora turned round to look at her daughter, her bright blue eyes glaring, then her expression softened and she said, “Of course you did, love. Barry wasn’t the man for you and we both know it. Him with a mother who stole Lewis from me. Pity they have to live above the shop, mind. You’d think he’d have more sense.” Rhiannon said nothing and Dora went on, “What a pair, Barry and his mother. Her living blatant as a newly polished brass poker with your father, and Barry marrying Caroline when he was engaged to you.”

  “They’re having a party.”

  “She’s a Griffiths, isn’t she? Of course they’ll have a party. I often wonder how that old house of theirs stands up to the strain.” She frowned and queried, “What sort of party for goodness sake? What’ll they call it? Delayed Wedding party? Or Here We Are Again party? Second Chance party? If our Viv is there Barry will take some ribbing. Married for more than eighteen months and only now persuading his wife to move in, that’s what folk’ll be saying.”

  “Will you come, Mam?”

  “Me, help celebrate Barry leaving you for Caroline? And besides, that Nia Martin will be there and wherever she is, so will your father be. Me sit and act social with those two? Fine party that’ll be.”

  “You’ll cope.”

  “And will you?” Dora asked more quietly. “Can you sit there and watch Caroline and Barry kissing and cuddling, remembering it might have been you?”

  “I’ll take Jimmy Herbert with me.”

  “Good idea.”

  Rhiannon wasn’t so sure. She was fond of Jimmy, who was a rep for a confectionery manufacturers, but she didn’t want to marry him. When she announced her engagement she wanted to be absolutely sure this time. Taking him to the party would help her cope with the occasion, but might create misconceptions to bother her later.

  “Yes, Mam, a good idea, but just to help me over the party, right?”

  Dora nodded, then began to add small amounts of mashed sardine and wedges of tomatoes to the toasted rounds. “D’you think three of these would be considered a meal?”

  * * *

  The party happened at the end of March 1954. Janet and Hywel rose early and began the preparation of food. Hywel, a burly man with grizzled hair, an untidy beard and very few teeth, helped his wife by filling the hot-water boiler and getting the fire underneath it burning well. He brought logs to replenish it and set them down in the wicker basket in the corner near the sink.

  “Anything else I can do, love?” he asked.

  “Come back early so you can bathe before we eat,” Janet grinned. “Don’t want people to arrive and find you sitting in solitary splendour in the zinc bathtub!”

  “Why not? Start the party off well, that would!”

  “End it more like, the sight of you!” Janet teased. “Don’t be late!” she admonished as he kissed her and went out.

  The joint of ham, given in exchange for a bucket of preserved eggs and a pair of working boots, had been cooked the day before and stood, covered in browned breadcrumb, on the top shelf where dog and cats couldn’t reach it. A huge fruit cake, which had been made with butter given by
a local farmer in return for previous favours, stood on the table beside several loaves of bread.

  With Frank and Ernie still in bed, and Caroline working in the wool shop in town, Janet organised some crayons to amuse baby Joseph and began to make sandwiches. Ham, fish, a paste made of tinned tomatoes and home-made cheese and, when those things ran out, meat paste, sandwich spread, and finally, for fear of not having enough, jam.

  Making small cakes was a task undertaken with Joseph’s help and pancakes too were piled up on the table to be heated up later. When the table offered no more space to be filled, Janet washed up and began to fill the bath.

  First there were a few items to hang out on the clothes line and while she was doing this, with Joseph handing her the pegs, Frank came downstairs and began to strip off.

  “Thanks, Mam,” he said trying the water with a big toe.

  “Oh no you don’t you lazy good-for-nothing.” Janet grabbed the yard brush made from birch twigs and threatened him, but Frank laughed, raising his hands in surrender.

  “Only kiddin’, Mam, honest! But can I have breakfast before you lock me out of the kitchen?”

  “No, and you can look after Joseph for me. I won’t be long.”

  “All right, come on young niblo, we’ll take a look at the garden, shall we? Leave the water, Mam, I’ll use it after you.”

  “Again? That’s twice this week. You must be courting!”

  Caroline returned from work at six o’clock and ran to greet her son before going upstairs to wash and dress in her new blue two-piece for the party. She felt apprehensive. What did people expect? Would there be innuendoes and suggestive remarks for her to cope with? She hoped Barry wouldn’t be delayed, leaving her to manage alone.

  When she went downstairs, carrying the water her mother had put in her room ready for her to wash, she heard his voice and sighed with relief. So long as Barry was beside her, she could cope with anything her brothers and their friends could do. There would be plenty to embarrass her but with Barry supporting her she would cope, and even enjoy it all.

  * * *

  Barry didn’t have the kind of looks that turned heads; he had a heavy, powerful jaw that made him look pugnacious at times, especially when he was deep in thought, although he was the calmest of men. But to Caroline he was one of the most attractive men she had known. Good looking in a very different way from his brother, Joseph, but nevertheless creating a strong magnetism, gradually born into love. Twenty-five years old, he was tall and had an air of authority about him. Now, as she stood at the bottom of the stairs and studied him, she saw he was wearing his best suit and a dazzlingly white shirt. His shoes were polished so they looked like glass and he looked well-scrubbed, the light picking up a shine on his freshly shaved skin.

  He was so different from her brothers, who seemed to believe that clean and smart was synonymous with being a sissy! Frank and Ernie, the inseparables, were dressed in denim trousers as worn by most working men, and “cowboy” shirts. Barry always looked neat. Standing among the men of her family, it made him appear to be in control, someone who would automatically take charge of a situation, while Frank and Ernie would be the type to hover and wait for orders.

  Perhaps it had been his army years, although that hadn’t changed her brothers overmuch; any training they had suffered was soon diluted once they had returned home.

  She took a deep breath and walked into the room, still carrying the bowl of soapy water, which Janet immediately relieved her of, allowing her to greet Barry with a shy kiss.

  “Here comes the bride,” Frank sang.

  “All dressed in blue,” Ernie continued.

  “Barry’s waited ages, cos,”

  “He didn’t know what to do!”

  “Pack it up you two,” Hywel growled, but everyone was laughing, including Caroline, and his disapproval softened into a smile.

  * * *

  By eight o’clock the room was so full that there didn’t seem to be room for another soul, but still they came. Rhiannon and Jimmy Herbert arrived with Dora at eight-thirty, and they found a place to sit by squashing themselves in between two guests fortunate enough to find room on the couch, until the guests gave up and moved somewhere else. There was a murmur of greeting and Dora looked up to see Nia squeezing through the throng towards the kitchen. Alarmed, Dora whispered to Rhiannon, “I knew we shouldn’t have come! Sitting here while Caroline canoodles with your ex-fiancé is bad enough, but now she turns up, that Nia Martin, with my ex – your father – in tow!”

  “Dad isn’t coming, Mam. I asked him and he said he wouldn’t. He’ll see Caroline and Barry tomorrow at the flat.”

  “What’s she come for, then? To rub it in that she stole my husband?”

  “Nia’s here because Barry’s her son. Be fair, Mam, you could hardly expect her to stay away.”

  “We shouldn’t have come.” Dora’s eyes looked threateningly bright.

  Rhiannon hugged her. “Don’t be upset, Mam. Our Dad is living with Barry’s mother and there’s nothing that will change that.”

  “Where’s Viv? He ought to be here. And where’s Basil and our Eleri? Is she bringing the baby?”

  Rhiannon hoped so. There was nothing more likely to soothe her mother’s tense nerves than Basil and Eleri Griffiths’s five-month-old baby son, Ronnie. Being in the same room as the woman who had taken her husband from her was an ordeal for Dora. Rhiannon knew that, although Nia and her mother had spoken to each other and managed to remain civilised, and Dora was trying desperately hard to accept the situation, it was at times like this, when Dora was outside the family circle to which her husband now belonged, that were hardest for her to bear.

  “If it’s too much for you, Mam, we’ll leave,” Rhiannon promised. “Jimmy will take us home whenever you say.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Dora muttered. “But where’s our Viv got to? He said he’d be here.”

  * * *

  Dora and Lewis Lewis had had three children, but only two now survived. Viv, who worked for the Weston family’s wallpaper and paint shop, and Rhiannon, who ran Temptations for Nia. Her eldest child, Lewis-boy, was dead. He had died at the same time as Nia’s son, Joseph.

  Losing her eldest son, then immediately finding out about the affair between her husband and Nia Martin, had sent Dora into a deep depression, but she had survived and now ran a café in partnership with Sian Heath-Weston, one of the Weston family. Having to face Lewis’s mistress at celebrations like this, where her daughter was watching her own ex-fiancé with his wife, was doubly difficult. Nia Martin and her son had messed up her life and that of her daughter. Staying calm was almost impossible. She was quick-tempered and her feelings were so outraged, both for herself and her daughter, she knew an explosion of rage could come at any moment. She should have refused to come. What had she been thinking of, coming here? But if Rhiannon could face it, then she had no alternative but to do the same. She glanced at the clock. Only nine o’clock. God, how time could drag. Hours to go before she could leave with dignity.

  When her son Viv arrived with Joan Weston, and Jack Weston with his shy little fiancée, Victoria Jones, things livened up and Dora was able to sit back and watch the fun created by the young people, aided and abetted by Hywel.

  Basil Griffiths, tall, gangly and more than a little drunk, was trying to dance with his diminutive mother. Bent almost double and picking her up to show off some intricate steps of his own invention, he forced everyone to lift their feet out of the way for fear of being trampled by his size tens.

  “Better than a cabaret, that Basil when he gets going,” Dora chuckled.

  Basil Griffiths had married the widow of Lewis-boy and was proud of the fact that he had worked regularly ever since. He had worked as a night watchman in a furniture factory for a while but now held the same position for a firm making building and gardening tools. The goods were mostly for export as the country struggled to begin paying off its war-time debts and rebuild trade with other countries.
Only a few of the items manufactured were allowed to reach the home market and most of those were seconds.

  Janet watched anxiously to see how Barry acted towards Caroline as she attended to the food. So far the celebratory couple had hardly spoken and had certainly not shown by a touch or even a glance that they were in love. She crossed her fingers and shared a look with Hywel, who guessed her concern and hugged her tightly.

  “They’ll be fine, love,” he whispered. “Stop worrying, now this minute, or I’ll get up and sing a song!”

  Janet tried to do as he said by concentrating on the comfort of her guests as the food disappeared, drink flowed and the party became divided between the somnolent older members and the livelier and more outrageous actions of the young ones. Once assured that the food wouldn’t run out, she sang a sentimental Irish song, to which Frank and Ernie added their own verse, Hywel was persuaded to do a sword dance between the pokers, and when it was time to leave, everyone agreed that it had been fun.

  “The Griffithses certainly know how to give a party,” Dora admitted.

  “There’s nothing like a good laugh to drive away sorrows,” Jimmy Herbert said, in a maudlin voice. “Lovely it is,” he said, almost in tears, “to have a good laugh.” He staggered and looked around him in a bemused way, and with Rhiannon one side of him and Dora the other, he forced himself upright and moved forward.

  The tall, and extremely skinny, Basil gathered his family around him and set off home smiling inanely and walking like a double-jointed ostrich, assuring them at intervals that they needn’t worry, he’d look after them and see them safe home.

  “Another man to rely on,” sighed Dora with a weary smile.

  * * *

  Caroline was aware of her heart beating in a frighteningly heavy way. The party was over and the excuses all used up. Now she was Mrs Barry Martin. But there was still a feeling of disbelief, still that sense of estrangement, as if she were taking part in a pageant rather than truly being Barry’s wife and all that implied. Worries about sharing Barry’s bed had increased until the thought was more a punishment than a joy.